I can remember living in Columbus, Ohio in 1997 . . . reading Baseball Weekly and there was a advertisement for TBS baseball, and it said:
Matisse
Monet
Maddux
Tim Keown of ESPN has written an interesting insider's view:
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Inside the man's head resides the most comprehensive history of the most essential confrontation in sports: pitcher vs. hitter. Maddux sees things nobody else sees, senses things nobody else senses. The examples are legendary, almost mythical. He can speed-read a batter's stancea little more open, a few inches up in the boxin the middle of his windup, allowing him to change his grip from changeup to fastball in the time it takes him to lift his leg. That's why, throughout his career, Maddux has steered clear of certain catchers, because they couldn't think fast enough to keep up with him. Padres catchers Josh Bard and Michael Barrett will sometimes go an entire game without giving him a sign. A little tap on the thigh for location is all that's necessary. Entering the 2008 season, two weeks shy of his 42nd birthday (April 14), Maddux had 347 winsseven behind Roger Clemens' 354, and 16 behind Warren Spahn's 363, the most wins by a pitcher since baseball erased the color line. He is the sport's quiet electrical hum, a guy who continues to win gamesat least 13 a season for the past 20 years, for the Cubs, the Braves, the Cubs again, the Dodgers and now the Padresdespite yielding organically to the muscle-dwindling effects of middle age. When Brad Penny and Maddux were teammates on the Dodgers, during the last two months of 2006, they had a conversation one day that led Penny to reach a stunning conclusion: This guy knows my stuff better than I do. It was eerie, really, how easily Maddux dissected Penny's repertoire and suggested ways to maximize it. Penny, figuring he'd take advantage of the situation, asked Maddux to call a game for him against the Cubs. And so, on the night of Sept. 13, Penny glanced into the dugout before every delivery and found Maddux, who signaled the next pitch by looking toward different parts of the ballpark. Penny threw seven scoreless innings with no walks and beat the Cubs 6-0. "Maddux probably won't tell you that story," Penny says. He's right.With the Cubs, the story goes, Maddux once sat in the dugout and watched Jos Hernndez of the Dodgers set up in the batter's box. After two pitches, Maddux turned to the guys around him and said, "We might have to call an ambulance for the first base coach." On the next pitch, Hernndez whipped a shot that hit first base coach John Shelby in the chest."He does that all the time," Bell says. "He'll say, 'Get ready to duck,' and two seconds later, here comes the ball."
At some point, probably soon, Maddux will be gone, and all of this will leave with him. He has told some teammates that this is his final season, which means no run at Grover Cleveland Alexander and Christy Mathewson, who are tied at 373, and no crazy notions about joining Cy Young and Walter Johnson in the 400-win club. "I'm not going to be one of those guys who pretends it's going to be easy to walk away," he says. "It's going to be hard, really hard."Last year, during a series at Dodger Stadium, Maddux and Bell had a conversation while shagging balls during batting practice. Bell said something casually to Maddux about the hours he'd spent over 22 years in the big leagues doing that very thingshagging balls and tossing them back to the bucket man behind second base. "You know," Maddux said, "I really should retire."
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It would seem, for the majority of us without overwhelming physical abilities, that Maddux feels right to root for . . . What do you think?